The Odd Couple, Getting Lost, and A Proposal

Evam is coming back to town with The Odd Couple. The play promises to be another gut-buster with Karthik Kumar and Sunil Vishnu (who also played in ART, see my earlier post). The story is about two divorced men sharing an apartment in NY:

Felix and Oscar are an extremely odd couple: Felix is neurotic, precise, and fastidiously clean. Oscar, on the other hand, is the exact opposite: sloppy and casual. What happens when the two friends are forced to share an apartment, and their differing lifestyles inevitably lead to conflicts- a full laugh riot for the audiences. Add to that their Saturday night poker gang friends: Vinnie- the dutiful husband, Murray- the cop, Roy-Oscar’s accountant and the sarcastic Speed, and the possibility of a date with the “Cuckoo” Pigeon sisters who live in the same apartment- you’ve got a chaotic entertainer for sure!

This Neil Simon situational comedy on one hand is about two opposite people (out of their marriages) deciding to stay together and the chaos and humour which is generated as a result, while on the other hand the story is about friendship, and loneliness — it gives us a glimpse into what makes us cling on to our friends even when they are so opposite to us and can drive us over the wall with their antics — the uncanny bond, which makes friendship such an odd-even relationship! Somewhere it also touches about how easy it is to lose people and how difficult to stay on and make things work — and sometimes you don’t get a choice at all!

The play is being performed with good intent — it is in support of Dare2Dream (find some information in this Hindu article), an NGO working for education in Bangalore. Another reason you should go. The event details are:

In other news, I had a tough time yesterday due to Google maps. We had wanted to go to FUGA for a party and FUGA is on Wood Street. Maps gave the correct address for FUGA as Wood Steet but a completely wrong location (See screenshot below — the location of FUGA that GMaps suggested is marked in “A” inside a red circle, while the actual location is somewhere near the big black dot on the map). Biggest trouble is that Gen Thimmaiah Rd (or Richmond Road as it was earlier known) is one way in the opposite direction (central Bangalore is one (way) big mess) and we had a rather tough time navigating back. There is more irony involved — the event itself was related to Google!

Needless to say, GMaps is an amazingly useful service. However, this means that address and landmark searches are still not 100% and you should take care before blindly trusting them (esp. if you are traveling to a place with lots of one ways).

For those, who want some more entertainment, listen to this Mallu Proposal Letter that I recorded (of course, it was a forward .. I did’nt write it myself, just recorded it!):

Madam:
I am an olden young uncle living only with myself in Thiruvananthapuram. Having seen your advertisement for marriage purposes, I decided to press myself on you and hope you will take me nicely.
I am a soiled son from inside Kerala. I am nice and big, six foot tall and six inches long. My body is filled with hardness, as because I am working hardly. I am playing hardly also. Especially I like cricket and I am a good batter and I am fast baller. Whenever I come running in for balling, other batters start running. Everybody is scared of my rapid balls that bounce a lot.
I am very nice man. I am always laughing loudly at everyone. I am a jolly gay . Especially ladies, they are saying I am nice and soft. I am always giving respect to the ladies. I am always allowing ladies to get on top.That is how nice I am.
I am not having any bad habits. I am not drinking and I am not sucking tobacco or anything else. Every morning I am going to the gym and I am pumping like anything. Daily I am pumping and pumping. If you want you can come and see how much I am pumping the dumb belles in the gym.
I am having a lot of money in my pants and my pants is always open for you. I am such a nice man, but still I am living with myself only. What to do? So I am taking things into my own hands everyday. That is why I am pressing myself on you, so that you will come in my house and take my things into your hand. If you are marrying me madam, I am telling you, I will be loving you very hard every day. In fact, I will stop pumping dumb belles in the gym.
If you are not marrying me madam and not coming to me, I will press you and press you until you come. So I am placing my head between your nicely smelling feet and looking up with lots of hope. I am waiting very badly for your reply and I am stiff with anticipation.
Expecting soon,
Yours and only yours Kutty

There is a disclaimer to go with this. Please don’t consider this either as racist or in bad taste. This is all in good humour. I have some very good Mallu friends — really talented and brilliant — and all they did was laugh :-)

There is also an update on my technical blog about Fran Allen’s talk. Check here.